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Hog Eye Man, The (Sailor’s Shanty Version)
Traditional Old-Time Breakdown and Song- Widely known;
ARTIST: As sung by Ian Campbell
CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes; DATE: 1853 (Hog Eye-Jigg) by Meade; (1928 recording, Pope's Arkansas Mountaineers);
RECORDING INFO: Arkansas Sheiks. Whiskey Before Breakfast, Bay 204, LP (1975), cut# 14. New Lost City Ramblers. New Lost City Ramblers, Vol. 3, Folkways FA 2398, LP (1961), cut# 18 (Hogeye). Pope's Arkansas Mountaineers. Echoes of the Ozarks, Vol. 1, County 518, LP (1977), cut# 9. Southern Michigan String Band. Transplanted Old Timy Music, Pine Tree PTSLP 509, LP (197?), cut# 2. Hog-Eyed Man -Hollow Rock String Band. Traditional Dance Tunes, Kanawha 311, LP (197?), cut# 6. Strong, Luther. American Fiddle Tunes, Library of Congress AFS L62, LP (1971), cut# 19. Sumner, Marion. Best of Seedtime on the Cumberland, June Appal JA 0059C, Cas (198?), cut# 10.
OTHER NAMES: "Hog Eye an' a 'Tater;" Hog-Eyed Man; "Granny Will Your Dog Bite;" "Row the boat ashore with a Hog-eye Man;" "The Jackfish;" "Old Bob Ridley;" "Betty Martin," "Boatin' Up Sandy," "Brad Walters," "Chippy/Gippy Get Your Haircut," "Hog Eye and a Tater," "Hog Eye," "Jake Gilly," "Old Mother Gofour," "Old Granny Rattletrap," "Pretty Betty Martin," "Very Pretty Martin," "Sally in the Garden," "Tip Toe Fine," "Fire on the Mountain."
SOURCES: Bayard, Hill Country Tunes, #75 "Hog Eye an' a 'Tater"; Sharp, English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, vol. 2, 360 (#250) "The Hog-eyed Man" (Clay County, Kentucky), 361 (#251) "The Jackfish" (Callaway, Virginia); Brown, The Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore vol. 5, 133 (#194-D) "Old Bob Ridley" (Watauga County, North Carolina); Sandburg, American Songbag, p. 380 "Hog-Eye" ("A lusty and lustful song developed by negroes of S.C."). A hillbilly recording is by Crockett Mountaineers on "Old-Time Medley." Additional discussion and citations may be found for "The Hog-Eyed Man" in American Fiddle Tunes (Library of Congress, AFS L62). American Songbag, Harcourt Brace Jovan..., Sof (1955), p380. Hog Eye and' a 'Tater -Yaugher, Irvin; Jr.. Hill Country Tunes: Instrumental Folk Music of Southwestern Penn, Amer. Folklore Society, fol (1944), 75. The Hog-Eye Man- American Songbag, Harcourt Brace Jovan..., Sof (1955), p410; New Lost City Ramblers. Old-Time String Band Songbook, Oak, Sof (1964/1976), p 67; Kaufman, Alan. Beginning Old-time Fiddle, Oak, sof (1977), p93. Kuntz, Fiddler's Companion, http://www.ceolas.org/tunes/fc;
NOTES: "Hog Eye Man" is a fiddle tune and sailor's shanty. I have indicated which type at the top with the title. The song has been categorized by Meade with Crockett's Kentucky Mountaineer's "Sally in the Garden." It is another of the Nordic tunes that float with "Fire on the Mountain," "Betty Martin," and "Granny Will Your Dog Bite."
"Hog-Eyed Man" is a well-known fiddle tune in the older repertory of the South. A nineteenth-century set in Winner's Collection of Music for the Violin, p. 75 "Hog Eye--Jigg" suggests that the song may have had some circulation on the popular stage. "Jigs" of this sort were a mid-nineteenth-century American genre in 2/4 time often associated with the minstrel stage or other popular entertainment. Modern song and fiddle versions suggest, however, that it is widespread in Southern tradition and may have gone from there to the popular stage, not the other way around. There may be an African-American connection to the song; it is certain that a sailor's shanty, with associated lyrics but a different tune, turns up in older sea shanty collections. The words to the song are typically bawdy.(Kuntz, Fiddler's Companion, http://www.ceolas.org/tunes/fc).
Pope's Arkansas Mountaineers recorded a 'chicken in the breadpan' variant under the title 'Hog-eye' which has some lyric similarities with the 'Hog-eye Man', best known as a sea shanty. It is included in NLCR 'Old-Time String Band Songbook' and has been released on CD in Dr Bill McNeil's box set 'Somewhere in Arkansas: Early Country Music Recordings From Arkansas 1928-1932' Center for Arkansas and Regional Studies, no catalogue number.
LYRICS:
And a hog-eye
Railroad navy with his hog-eye
Row ashore, and a hog-eye oh
She wants the hog-eye man
Oh go fetch me down my riding cane
For I'm goin' to see my darlin' Jane
Oh the hog-eye men are all the go
When they come down to San Francisco
Now it's, Who's been here since I've been gone
A railroad navy with his sea-boots on
Oh Sally in the garden picking peas
Her golden hair hanging down to her knees
Oh Sally in the garden shelling peas
With a young hog-eye sittin' on her knees
Oh a hog-eye ship and a hog-eye crew
A hog-eye mate and skipper too
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